PANDORA

by Hagiwara Rei. Published by Glacier Bay Books, April 2023.
264 pages, A5. Full color offset printing on coated text stock. Sewn perfect binding with full color double sided half-jacket / obi + color interior cover printing.

“Five meditations on grief receding into memory, phantoms of traumas past but not yet forgotten, people struggling to make peace with loss. Hagiwara Rei sets out a sequential tapestry of transcendent watercolor comics which linger in the back of your mind like words you never got to tell someone you loved. Heart-wrenching, intimate. Open Pandora and allow its haunted pages a home in your soul.” – Helen Chazan

PANDORA, The Receding Sound of Footsteps is Hagiwara Rei’s masterpiece. Rei is a comic artist based in Japan who has self-published their work at Comita through the domestic indie manga scene since 2018. Born in 1993, Rei first become more widely known to English language readers Fall of 2020 through the Glacier Bay Books publication of their sparse and emotionally resonant debut Ripples. PANDORA expands on this with their second long form work, a lyrical, full color 264 page collection of five stories. Painted in delicate watercolors during 2020/2021 and the initial throes of the covid 19 pandemic, PANDORA simultaneously reflects on current events as well as the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Gorgeous and direct, these stories tenderly reach into your very heart of hearts.  Hagiwara Rei masterfully paints the elliptical nature of life and loss in the present time, depicting five scenes of the grief and hope to be found in the modern age.
Translation: zhuchka
Lettering: Tim Sun
Editing and Book Design: emuh ruh